Meet the Morons Who Caused the Shutdown

There have been Congresses more irresponsible, though not many of them. There have been lazier Congresses, more vicious Congresses, and Congresses less capable of seeing forests for trees. But there has never been in a single Congress -- or, more pre...

There has never been a single House of the Congress with a more lethal combination of political ambition, political stupidity, and political vainglory than this one.

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Representative Vicky Hartzler of Missouri

Among other things, Vicky Hartzler apparently believes that the heathen Chinese are spying on us through our toasters.

And I am concerned. They are shipping all the, I'm concerned about the microchips. That they are in many, many of the things that we own. And some of those are embedded, I believe, with, with detection and, uh, capabilities or tracking capabilities.

She'd also rather the government not tolerate those "fringe religions" because the First Amendment says that Congress Shall Make No Law Unless Vicky Hartzler Thinks Your God Is Freaky.

No, it's not their role at all. Their role is to facilitate basic policy for our country and to not to try to lift up one religion over the other, they should be defending the basic rights that we have, that freedom of religion here, and certainly not facilitating or accommodating fringe religions, it's crazy.

"The accounts of Absalom and David reveal important truths about campaigning and serving," Hartzler wrote. "Absalom was the first politician. He sought higher office and actively campaigned for it. Absalom won over the hearts of the people of Israel using time-tested campaign strategies. We, too, can campaign successfully following these same guidelines. In addition, if elected, we can serve honorably, heeding the insights gained from the circumstances behind his victory. Absalom was able to win not only because he implemented a winning strategy, but also because God allowed it as punishment for David's sin with Bathsheba."

In 2012, she won re-election with 60 percent of the vote.

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Representative Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma

With one speech on the House floor in June, Fincher vaulted himself into the middle of the pack of possible successors to Michele Bachmann as Royal Regent of the Crazy People. (Louie Gohmert is, of course, emperor for life.)

Mr. Speaker, the President's dishonesty, incompetence, vengefulness and lack of moral compass lead many to suggestthat he is not fit to lead. The only problem is that his vice president is equally unfit and even more embarrassing.

Bridenstine then went on Mark Levin's radio program -- which is where you go when you need Founding Father cred -- and compared himself to Patrick Henry, who yelled at a king, and not at Kathleen Sebelius, but never mind. He earlier had enlivened constitutional debate by announcing that, no matter what John Roberts thinks, the Supreme Court doesn't get to decide what's constitutional and what's not.

Just because the Supreme Court ruleson something doesn't necessarily mean that that's constitutional. What that means is that that's what they decided on that particular day given the makeup of the Court on that particular day. And the left in this country has done an extraordinary job of stacking the courts in their favor. So what we have to do as a body of Congress is say, "look, just because the courts" - and I hear this all the time from Republicans - they say that the court is the arbitrator and after the arbitration is done, that's the rules we have to live under and we can go forth and make legislation given those rules. That's not the case. A perfect example if Obamacare. Obamacare is not constitutional, the individual mandate.

This is clearly an entry with a lot of momentum. We'll have to see if he can hold it over the distance. In 2012, he won election with 63.5 percent of the vote.

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A Bedlamite Medley to Mix It Up

In August, we learned from Senator Rand Paul -- otherwise known as Senator Aqua Buddha -- that no black people that he's been able to find are having their votes suppressed. Now, from Rep. Tom McClintock, we discover that there simply is no such thing as white-collar crime.

At a town hall meeting in El Dorado Hills, California on Tuesday, a constituent asked McClintock for his "stance on Wall Street criminal practices." The congressman responded, "Well first of all, for a criminal practice there has to be a gun. It's pretty simple."

Wait, so now, if I stick somebody up with a knife, or a club, or a homemade petrol bomb, or a phony mortgage, I am not engaging in "criminal practice." Something's indeed simple here, Tom, and I don't think it's your argument.

After detailing his opposition to reforms that would curb bank risk-taking and simplify the financial system, McClintock added that bad financial decisions are the responsibility of the individual who makes them and that's "the price we pay for the freedom to make all of the good decisions in our lives."

I agree. The decision we made not to hang the presidents of every major investment bank from a lamp post by their thumbs while pelting them with rotting fruit is our responsibility and we should own the mistake. But McClintock wasn't finished. He had some anthropologizin' to do, too.

Interestingly, that provision for patriotic integration is missing from the Senate legislation. The motto of this country is e pluribus unum, and one of its meanings is "from many nations, one nation, the American nation." There's only one race here, it's the American race. And the only way you accomplish that is through assimilation. That is what our immigration laws are designed to promote, and that is precisely what illegal immigration undermines.

It's pretty damn hard to assimilate when you know that, as soon as you walk outside, you can be bundled off home by the ICE people.By the way, McClintock won re-election in 2012 with 61.1 percent of the vote. Ein Cali, ein Volk, ein Batshit, I guess.

Meanwhile, Steve Stockman of Texas, never one to miss an opportunity to prove that Being A Dick is the fundamental philosophical underpinning of modern conservative thought.

"Liberals want to bronco bust dissent," Stockman said in a press release that called the event a harmless gag. "But Texans value speech, even if its speech they don't agree with. From Molly Ivins to Louie Gohmert and every opinion in between, Texans value free and open political speech. I'm sure any rodeo in Texas would be proud to have performers."

Everyone who believes that Steve Stockman "valued" what Molly Ivins had to say about anything, please stand on your head.For example, I am sure he "valued" very highly the columnin which the late Ms. I wrote:

That's how we got Rep. Steve Stockman, our proudest contribution to the national Knot-Head Quotient, in the first place. Normal voters stayed home, the Christian right and its disciplined troops turned out in force, and whammo, we sent a hopeless dingbat off to Congress. I'm not saying that all candidates supported by the Christian right are hopeless dingbats: Stockman is special. For those of you who may have forgotten, Stockman is the glorious gun nut, militia supporter and Polluters' Best Friend who is facing a complaint to the Federal Election Commission from the 1994 campaign and will almost surely draw another this time. In '94, he took $80,000 from the Suarez Corp. of Ohio, which was out to get incumbent Jack Brooks. Stockman, according to The Beaumont Enterprise and the Houston Chronicle, lied on his resume in '92 about being an accountant, lied about having worked for IBM, lied about being a graduate of the University of Houston-Clear Lake (he did later graduate) and lied about being a computer consultant at the school.

I suspect the thing Stockman "values" most about Molly Ivins's free-speech rights is that she's dead an can't exercise them any more. It's up to the rest of us to carry on, and to point out that Stockman got 70.7 percent of the vote last time out.

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Representative Steve Fincher of Tennessee

We're always on the lookout for bright new scriptural scholars, and by god, you should pardon the expression, we've found one in Congressman Fincher, who decided that the poor people on food stamps need to be banged around by the Bible a little.

Appearing this past weekend at a gathering at a Memphis Holiday Inn, Fincher explained his position on food stamps by stating, "The role of citizens, of Christians, of humanity is to take care of each other, but not for Washington to steal from those in the country and give to others in the country." The Congressman's remarks come on the heels of his taking the biblical route when responding to Representative Juan Vargas' (D-Calif.) somewhat different take on the teachings of Jesus. During a recent House Agriculture Committee debate over the Farm Bill (which contains the food stamp budget), Vargas, citing the Book of Matthew, noted, "[Jesus] says how you treat the least among us, the least of our brothers, that's how you treat him." Vargas also noted that Jesus directly mentions the importance of feeding the hungry. Not to be outdone by a Godless Democrat, Congressman Fincher responded with his own Bible quote taken from the Book of Thessalonians -- "The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat."

Some day, I hope, Jesus takes St. Paul -- "the great blatherskite with his epistles in bad Greek," as Flann O'Brien's St. Augustinecalls him -- out in back of the barn and, in all Christian love and charity, beats him over the head with a sickle. The latter's certainly given enough material to enough crazy people down through the years to dilute the message of the Gospels into something resembling a FreedomWorks flyer stuck under your windshield wiper while you were in church. And, to stay scriptural for a moment, is Congressman Fincher something of a whitened sepulcher? Why, yes, he is.

Fincher is one of the largest recipients of federal farm subsidies, according to the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization that also investigates government subsidies. By EWG's count, the Republican congressman received nearly $3.5 million in federal subsidies between 1999 and 2012. In one year alone, he was given nearly $560,000 incommodity subsidies -- government cash payments used by farmers to supplement their income. Those types of subsidies affect the cost and supply of crops.

That aside, the verse that Fincher misquotes is anyway about how certain Christians stopped working because of the imminence of the Second Coming, which was not imminent at all. No matter, because, in 2012, he won re-election with 68.3 percent of the vote.

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Representative Michael Burgess of Texas

The loopiest of the god-bothering fetus-fetishists is Congressman Michael Burgess of the 26th Congressional District in Texas, an actual medical doctor and an OB/GYN to boot. Addie Stan caught Burgess making one of the strangest -- and, frankly, ickiest -- anti-choice arguments ever made.

"Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful," said Burgess, a former OB/GYN. "They stroke their face. If they're a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?"

In other words, we should eliminate a woman's right to choose because, if you look very, very closely at a sonogram, you can see male fetuses jerk off. (Very, very, very closely.)I was raised Catholic, and thus am familiar with the concept of Original Sin, but pre-natal wanking is as original a sin as I'd like to contemplate, and I'd rather not contemplate it anyway, thank you very much. I know, I know, let the epidemic of hairy-palmed babies be on my head.

In case you were wondering, and in case you might choose not to shake his hand next time around when he runs for re-election, Burgess won in 2012 with 68.3 percent of the vote. So, yes, Michael Burgess, you and your lurid imaginings of what goes on in the fleshpots of the womb, have earned you spot in this hallowed pack of morons.

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Representative Tom Marino of Pennsylvania

You may have noticed in July that the president announced that he would delay implementation of the employer mandate provisions of the Affordable Care Act. This was considered by several to be yet another sop thrown to the vandals across the aisle who have voted futilely to repeal the whole thing 37 times. This was considered by the vandals in question to be an outrage. This is not surprising. The vandals in question could find a reason to be outraged by Glinda, Good Witch Of The North.

Which brings us to Rep. Tom Marino of the 10th Congressional District Of Pennsylvania. He is outraged. He is vexed and ratty, SIR! And he is thinking about calling in...wait for it...the law.

...but during a local radio interview on "94.3 The Talker," Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA) went a step further, telling the David Madeira Show that "If the chief law enforcer of the country ... will not enforce the law, and the president decides to break the law because he doesn't like it, there has to be another mechanism by which we in Congress can kick into gear, pursue this, see if there are criminal charges we can file." He added that he plans to "approach leadership and say we need to appoint a special committee like there was in Watergate that has authority to subpoena people, that has authority to investigate; and, I'm looking for a part of a statute that says we have the authority to indict."

Actually, the "statute" under which your present institution operates is called the Constitution Of The United States and in it, there is a provision that gives you "the authority to indict." It is called impeachment. Put another way, the House Of Representatives is not a jerkwater DA's office in Luzerne County, and you are not a local gallus-snapping prosecutor in a town where your brother-in-law is the sheriff and your Uncle Fud is the judge. Jesus, these people.

Tom, who is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, first came to our attention a while back when he seemed not to realize that Libya was in Africa. No matter, because, in 2012, he won re-election with 65.6 percent of the vote. So, yes, Tom Marino, you and your odd notions of both geography and the constitutional order, are in the ballgame.

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Representative Reid Ribble of Wisconsin

Now here's somebody who decided to explain Catholicism to a nun. We had some experience with this in our early life, and we can tell you conclusively that it never ends well, but come on down, anyway, Congressman Reid Ribble of the Eighth Congressional District in Wisconsin! There's a ruler with the name of your knuckles on it.

...Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI) indicted Campbell and the Catholic Church for not doing enough to fix poverty on their own, asking, "What is the church doing wrong that they have to come to the government to get so much help?" Campbell shot back, "Justice comes before charity... Everyone has a right to eat, and therefore there is a governmental responsibility to ensure everyone's capacity to eat. Love and care makes a difference, but the issues are so big there isn't sufficient charitable dollars there."

See, here's the thing, Reid, you frog's onomatopoeia, you. When the good sister talks about food stamps, as she was doing, she's not doing so because the Church has somehow failed. It's because the American people, Catholic and otherwise, didn't vote for the fking pope. They voted for the likes of you, and they did so in order that their government would respond to their needs — which, in this time of economic hardship, means they would like you to help out so their kids don't go hungry. You're going to enjoy clapping erasers while kneeling on pebbles after school for the next few months, Reid.

(By the way, it should be noted, because the blog has long been a fan of the completely phony No Labels scam, by which "centrist" politicians get together and support policies produced in those offices at the Heritage Foundation in which people still wear shoes, that this cluck is one of No Labels's "problem solvers." Please cover me with honey and let loose the fire ants now.)

In 2012, he won re-election with 56 percent of the vote. So, yes, Reid Ribble, you echoing evening swamp-call of a person, you've made the field.

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Representative Blake Farenthold of Texas

Let's spend a moment with Blake Farenthold, the pride of the 27th Congressional District of Texas, who finds himself quite disappointed with how the gridlock in Washington has frustrated the true business of Washington -- i.e., getting rid of that Kenyan in the White House.

"I think unfortunately the horse is already out of the barn on this, on the whole birth certificate issue...The original Congress when his eligibility came up should have looked into it and they didn't. I'm not sure how we fix it. You tie into a question I get a lot: ‘If everyone's so unhappy with the president's done, why don't you impeach him? I'll give you a real frank answer about that: If we were to impeach the president tomorrow, you could probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it. But it would go to the Senate and he wouldn't be convicted."

However does he get up in the morning?

"What message do we sent to America if we impeach Obama and he gets away with what he's impeached for and he is found innocent? What then do we say is OK? Aside from the fact that it wouldn't be effective, I think there's some potential damage to society that would be done with a failed attempt at impeachment."

Mind you, nothing Farenthold says here is incorrect. The whole idea is stupid and futile. But it's hanging his faded dreams on the Birther fantasy, and Farenthold's obvious disappointment at the prospects of his drive-time AM dreams that puts him into contention here.In 2012, Farenthold was re-elected with 56.8 percent of the vote. Alas, he is only one man, so the Kenyan stays where he is. Meanwhile, Farenthold stays right here in moron heaven.

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Representative Ted Yoho of Florida

Just recently, Ted decided to get tough with Speaker Boehner, which means that, when he looks in the mirror, Ted sees the warm steady gaze of history looking back at him, and he is so transfixed that he doesn't even notice that his eyeballs are spinning in opposite directions.

"It only takes one with passion - look at Rosa Parks, Lech Walesa, Martin Luther King," said Representative Ted Yoho of Florida, one of the rank-and-file House Republicans who have risen up to challenge their party's leadership over whether to confront the Senate and President Obama with their demands to cut off funding for the president's health care law. "People with passion that speak up, they'll have people follow them because they believe the same way, and smart leadership listens to that."

Let's see. Rosa Parks and Dr. King stood up to an entrenched system of American apartheid that was willing to kill, and that actually did kill one of them, in order to extend full citizenship to all Americans. Lech Walesa stood up to...the fking Soviet empire in order for Poland to be free of it. Ted Yoho is bravely inconveniencing John Boehner so as to prevent 40 million Americans from having health insurance. And our old friend Clio, Muse of History, occasionally known by her Marvel Comics name, The Proclaimer (!), cracks gropes blindly for the bottle of Quaaludes. "Yoho, 'ho," she murmurs. "Where the hell's the bottle of rum?"

In 2012, Ted Yoho was elected from Florida's Third Congressional District with 64 percent of the vote. That is how he gets to be Lech Walesa with franking privileges. But good for you, Ted Yoho. You and your curious gift for historical analogy has put you in special company indeed.

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